Gas / Electrickery Payments

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Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
If you pay these by direct debit, you could gain a "free" month by changing the payment date.
Just checked my dates and both were mid-month payment dates and I've changed them both to the 28th of the month and after my pensions go into the bank account.
So by deferring payments by a few days, I will get one month without incurring a charge!
 

Dadam

Über Member
Location
SW Leeds
You're still billed for what you use, so you're just moving the regular payments around, not saving any money.
 

Donger

Convoi Exceptionnel
Location
Quedgeley, Glos.
If you want real money-saving acumen, my missus takes some beating. She has just arranged completely superfluous holiday insurance for two days in Wales through Compare the Market at a cost of £1.01. That's us Meerkatted for another year with two for one cinema tickets and meals out. One smart cookie.
 

Brandane

Legendary Member
Location
Costa Clyde
Wish I could save somehow. Since moving in we've had doors open all the time, heating on, lights on (and left on overnight by the teenagers). Looked at the Octopus app today and if we continue at the same rate as the last 2 days, we'll be in for a £600 monthly bill

Is that why you call yourself ELECTRIC_Andy?
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
Is that why you call yourself ELECTRIC_Andy?

In fairness, moving in we were putting in 14 hour days for about a week. Lifting, shifting, decorating. All the lights and heating were on pretty much the whole time. I'm the only one in the house who turns things off! We still haven't worked out how to set the timing for the boiler but we will in time. The house was owned by a builder who did everything himself and it's a very high use building. E.g. there were TVs in every room (including the kitchen and tool shed). There's an electric heater in the cinema room down in the garden (which I beg not to be used but it's freezing down there when the boys have friends over). Plus we have an 18yo shower addict but thankfully he's joining the army this week.
 

Electric_Andy

Heavy Metal Fan
Location
Plymouth
Add Smart lighting / heating controls?

Could be a good idea in time. We have a 16yo who leaves all lights on and all doors open. Smart heating would be easier, maybe next payday. Smart lighting I'm not sure, with all new smart bulbs it could take years to recoup the cost. All downstairs lights are spotlights, probably 15 in total
 

Tom...

Guru
If you want real money-saving acumen, my missus takes some beating. She has just arranged completely superfluous holiday insurance for two days in Wales through Compare the Market at a cost of £1.01. That's us Meerkatted for another year with two for one cinema tickets and meals out. One smart cookie.

@Donger Unfortunately, she can be beaten quite easily. You don't even need to purchase the policy, once you click through to purchase just close the window and go back and it'll give you the option to sign up for Meerkat rewards (for nothing) 👍🏼
 
OP
OP
Sharky

Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
Is there a "bill's restaurant" near you? Both me and the OH are signed up for their newsletter. Post Christmas, they sent out some 2 for 1 main meal discounts. So we enjoyed two meals at half price.

In the hope that they repeat the offer again, just signed up for a newsletter on all our other active email accounts.
 

si_c

Guru
Location
Wirral
Could be a good idea in time. We have a 16yo who leaves all lights on and all doors open. Smart heating would be easier, maybe next payday. Smart lighting I'm not sure, with all new smart bulbs it could take years to recoup the cost. All downstairs lights are spotlights, probably 15 in total

Smart heating controls are probably your best bet, it really depends on your boiler, but keep in mind that if you want to replace it with something truly smart you are likely to need to get a gas safe registered plumber to do the wiring for you. I use a Nest thermostat and it's great, it learns your patterns and adapts the heating schecdule to your needs, I can turn the heating on from the couch but equally if there is nobody in the house then the heating doesn't get turned on in the first place. If you have a boiler capable of opentherm then you can run the boiler at a much lower overall output and save money even more.

Replacing the existing lights with LED bulbs if not already done can result in savings - but keep in mind that smart lighting isn't neccessarily that good at reducing bills. Wifi enabled bulbs use more power in the first place and cost a bit more, but you can set up a smart home routine to turn them all off at a certain time of night which could save money. In practice I found that the savings don't really add up - it costs around £10 per bulb compared to around a quid for a regular LED light bulb and even if you left them on all day every day at 8w per bulb the total cost is only around £15 per year per bulb. It's the same with smart radiator TRVs, they don't save you any energy really - the only difference compared to a regular TRV is that they display the temperature target they are set at. And that doesn't help with spotlights, just the ones you have upstairs.

An alternative would be to try smart light switches - but that is a whole different kettle of fish as they generally require a neutral feed to the switch, which most UK houses don't have they have a live loop. You could try Quinetic - they have a wireless switch ecosystem which includes app connected toggles on some of the options, but those tend to be quite expensive and you'd have to decide for yourself whether the financial cost/benefit is worth it.

You also mentioned you have electric heating in the garden room - depending on how it's set up it might be more cost effective to swap to using oil radiators - they tend to work really well, I use one in my office and it doesn't cost much to run and saves putting the heating on for the full house.

My last thought is electric showers - they are cripplingly expensive at the moment, when we moved we took out the old electric shower and ran a feed to the hot water and installed a mixer shower - even though prices have dropped a bit it's still 5x more expensive to run an electric shower than a mixer. Most showers are around 7kw output, a quick estimate means that a family of 4 with a 15 minute shower each, once a day will spend just under £3 per day on the shower, compared to 75p for a mixer, run that difference out and you save between £400 and £600 per year.

I think you've probably realised that the most cost effective method of dealing with most of the things is to to get your kids to change their habits with lights and doors though.
 
After 20 plus years of having this shower I only realized last year about the Eco setting on it.
If we use the Eco setting then it just pulls from the home battery that is full of solar or cheap rate electric.
If we use the Normal setting then it's too much current and it pulls from the grid and we pay peak rate prices godddammit.

Cool showers are good for you anyway !
 
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